[Durelin]

When her husband had left that morning, Sairien was troubled by countless possibilities of what could go wrong. Even she had heard the whispers of war, and she knew that these were far more than just rumours, not simply by her instinct, but also by the way Maegisil reacted when she questioned him. “Please, do not talk of war, too!” he had said several days ago, obviously exhausted by a day of counsel with his lord. She wondered how late her husband would return tonight.

There was too much on her mind to succeed in getting anything done around the house, and far too much for her to simply sit around and occupy herself with various things. She had to find something…but not here. Memories and worries and concerns hung around her home, clinging to every wall and strung across every door. Sairien had to get out of the house.

Soon she was in the streets of Ost-in-Edhil, and her head cleared a little with the freshness of the air and thoughts of her destination. Today was like most other days, when she decided to escape for a little while, and dream of being someone else, or at least, somewhere else. To help her depart from the concerns of her everyday life, she always went down to the river, by the docks, where there were still people, but she was still quite alone.

The river always reminded her of the sea. She knew there was a great difference between the two, even though it had been so long since she had seen the sea. She would never forget any detail of the ocean landscape as she had seen it. Practically every day she missed it, and there were days when she missed it for more reasons than simply its beauty. She had looked across the sea and known that many of her people had crossed over it into the West, and she had felt something calling to her, and more than the sound of the gulls… Sairien had held on to that feeling, keeping it deep in her heart and not allowing herself to forget that sensation, a feeling of joy and a feeling that she was soon to reach her home if only she took a few steps into the sea, and yet a feeling of sadness and fear that if she left she would leave behind too many things. That was before she had met Maegisil, and now she knew some of the things she would have left behind had she had gone over the sea.

But sometimes, like today, she could not help but feel that something more waited for her. And she knew that her husband could depart with her, if only he didn’t still cling to this Middle-earth, to Eregion, and to his lord. He clung to his wife as well, but she knew he could not pull him away from Ost-in-Edhil and Celebrimbor.

Arriving at the docks, Sairien walked cautiously along a small stretch of wooden planks that spanned a short distance across the water. This small outcrop of the docks usually was unoccupied, and she had stood upon it or sat upon it, looking down into the water, across the top of it, and down its winding path of snake-like flowing. But today, there was another. It was an elf who Sairien vaguely remembered seeing before. She recalled he did ironwork, but she could not be sure. She moved quietly across the boards to where he stood at the edge of the dock.

“May I join you, sir?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Why, of course,” the elf responded, smiling at her kindly.

“I am not used to finding anyone here… I love this place, but I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone else discovered its beauty,” she said, returning the smile.

“Well, I am both sorry and glad to be the first to do so,” he said with a small laugh. “My name is Cainenyo.”

“And I am Sairien.” Cainenyo…the name did not ring any bells, which irked her. “Perhaps you know my husband, Maegisil?”